Australian Dictionary of Biography

The Editorial Board is responsible for the management and scholarly direction of the Australian Dictionary of Biography. Its members are drawn from university history departments in Canberra and the State capitals.

Current members

Tom Griffiths (chair)
Darryl Bennet
Nicholas Brown
Pat Buckridge
Patrick Cornish
Chris Cunneen
Joy Damousi
David Dunstan
Stephen Garton
David Horner
Peter Howell
Beverley Kingston
Stefan Petrow
Paul Pickering
Carolyn Rasmussen
Jill Roe 

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Tom Griffiths (Chair of the Board)
Tom Griffiths is a Professor of History in the Research School of Social Sciences at the ANU, and Director of the School of History’s Centre for Environmental History.

His research, writing and teaching interests are in the fields of Australian social, cultural and environmental history, the comparative environmental history of settler societies, the writing of non-fiction, and the history of Antarctica. 

Tom’s books and essays have won prizes in history, science, literature, politics and journalism and include Hunters and Collectors: the Antiquarian Imagination in Australia (1996) and Forests of Ash: An Environmental History (2001). His most recent monograph, Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica (2007), won the Queensland and NSW Premiers’ awards for Non-Fiction Writing and was the joint winner of the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History in 2008. 

Tom chaired the ADB’s Commonwealth Working Party between July 1999 and December 2004 and has been chair of the Editorial Board since 2006. 

Darryl Bennet
Darryl Bennet joined the staff of the ADB in 1989 as a research editor and worked on the Commonwealth, armed forces and Victorian desks. He was appointed deputy general editor in 2001 and managed the ARC-funded three-year ADB online project. 

Following his retirement in 2008 he moved to Brisbane and joined the ADB’s Queensland Working Party. He was appointed to the Editorial Board in June 2011. 

Nicholas Brown
Dr Nicholas Brown was a research fellow in the ANU’s Urban Research Program in the 1990s. After a period in the Australian Public Service, he was the Keith Cameron Professor of Australian History at University College, Dublin (2002-04). He returned to the ANU in 2004 to join the ADB as a Senior Fellow, moving to the School of History as a Senior Fellow in 2009. 

Nick’s publications include Governing Prosperity: Social Analysis and Social Change in Australia in the 1950s (1995) and Richard Downing: Economics, Advocacy and Social Reform in Australia (2001). 

Nicholas has been the chair of the ADB’s Commonwealth Working Party since December 2004 and has been on the Editorial Board since May 2006. 

Pat Buckridge
Professor Patrick Buckridge has lectured on literature at Griffith University since 1981 and is Professor of the School of Humanities and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. 

He has chaired the Queensland Working Party since January 2000 and has been a member of the Editorial Board since April 2000. 

Patrick Cornish
Patrick Cornish has worked as a journalist in Western Australia, South Africa and England and in 1980-90 was Foreign Editor for the West Australian. In 1991-93 he was head of the graduate diploma in journalism course at Murdoch University and is now a freelance writer and editor. His publications include Soul of A City: Kings Park & Botanic Garden, Perth, Western Australia (1995). 

He joined the ADB’s Western Australia Working Party in 2006 and the Editorial Board in August 2011. 

Chris Cunneen
Dr Christopher Cunneen was a Research Fellow (1974-82) and deputy general editor (1982-96) of the ADB. In 1996 he was appointed research fellow in the Department of Modern History at Macquarie University. 

His publications include William John McKell: Boilermaker, Premier, Governor General (2000) and The Role of Governor-General in Australia 1901-1927 (1973). 

Chris has been a member of the NSW Working Party since 1975 and joined the Editorial Board in June 2011. 

Joy Damousi
Joy Damousi is Professor of History at the University of Melbourne. Her many publications include Colonial Voices: A Cultural History of English in Australia, 1840-1940 (2010) and Living With the Aftermath: Trauma, Nostalgia and Grief in Post-War Australia (2001). Her book, Freud in the Antipodes: A Cultural History of Psychoanalysis in Australia (2005), won the 2006 Ernest Scott Prize. 

She joined the Editorial Board in August 2011. 

David Dunstan
David Dunstan joined the ADB newly graduated as a researcher in 1974 and has been a regular contributor since then.  He completed degrees in history at Monash and Melbourne universities. His Dictionary entries comprise mainly Melbourne and Victorian subjects but embrace his many interests: heritage, urban politics and government, tourism, the social history of wine and viticulture, journalism, popular culture and autobiography. 

His current research interests include the history of newspapers and journalism, Australians abroad, publishing and sport and Australian colonial and post-colonial identity. He teaches Australian Studies and Publishing at Monash University. 

David has chaired the Victorian Working Party since April 2008 and has been a member of the Editorial Board since October 2004. 

Stephen Garton
Professor Stephen Garton began his career as a teaching fellow in the School of Humanities at Griffith University before joining the University of Sydney in 1988 as a lecturer in the Department of History. During the next 13 years he took on leadership positions including Head of the Department and Challis Chair in History, before becoming Dean in 2001. He was appointed Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor in 2009. 

He is the author of four books and over sixty articles, chapters, and encyclopaedia and historical dictionary entries in such areas as the history of madness, psychiatry, crime, incarceration, masculinity, eugenics, social policy, poverty, returned soldiers, masculinity and sexuality. 

Stephen has served on the NSW Working Party since December 1989 and on the ADB’s Editorial Board since May 1999. 

David Horner
David Horner is the Professor of Australian Defence History in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University. He graduated from the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in 1969 and served as an infantry platoon commander in Vietnam in 1971. He had various regimental and staff appointments and in 1983 graduated from the Australian Army’s Command and Staff College. From 1988, until he retired from the Regular Army as a lieutenant colonel towards the end of 1990, he was a member of the Directing Staff of the Joint Services Staff College. 

Professor Horner is the author or editor of 30 books on Australian military history, strategy and defence including High Command (1982), Blamey: The Commander-in-Chief (1998), and Strategic Command, General Sir John Wilton and Australia’s Asian Wars (2005). He has been a consultant to various television programs and has lectured widely on military history and strategic affairs. He is the editor of the Australian Army’s military history series. As an Army Reserve colonel, from 1998 to 2002 he was the first Head of the Australian Army’s Land Warfare Studies Centre. In 2004 he was appointed the Official Historian of Australian Peacekeeping, Humanitarian and Post-Cold War Operations. He is the General Editor of this six-volume series and is writing two of the volumes, the first of which, Australia and the ‘New World Order’, was published in January 2011. 

He is a member of the Defence Honours and Awards Appeals Tribunal. In the 2009 Queen’s Birthday Honours he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for services to higher education in the area of Australian military history and heritage as a researcher, author and academic. In 2009 he was appointed official historian for the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. He has chaired the ADB’s Armed Forces Working Party since September 1994 and has served on the Editorial Board since August 1996. 

Peter Howell
Associate Professor Peter Howell taught at the University of Tasmania (1962-66) before becoming a lecturer at Flinders University of South Australia in 1968, and Reader in History in 1982. He has specialised in British and Australian constitutional history, the best-known of his earlier books being The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council: Its Origins, Structure and Development (1979). 

Peter has chaired the South Australian Working Party and been a member of the Editorial Board since 1996. 

Beverley Kingston
Associate Professor Beverley Kingston taught history at the University of New South Wales for 30 years and is currently an honorary research fellow in the School of History at the UNSW. Her publications include one of the classic works of 1970s feminism, My Wife, My Daughter, and Poor Mary Ann: Women and Work in Australia (1975). More recently she published A History of New South Wales (2006). 

Beverley has been a member of the New South Wales Working Party since 1974, its chair since July 1994 and has served on the Editorial Board since August 1996. 

Stefan Petrow
Associate Professor Stefan Petrow was a law librarian in Hobart before joining the University of Tasmania’s history department, where he teaches Australian and Tasmanian history. 

He is the author of four books including Policing Morals: The Metropolitan Police and the Home Office 1870-1914 (1994). 

Stefan has been a member of the ADB’s Tasmanian Working Party since 1988 and joined the Editorial Board in June 2011. 

Paul Pickering
Professor Paul Pickering taught at LaTrobe and Deakin Universities, and the Council for Adult Education in Victoria, before coming to the ANU in 1998 as a postdoctoral fellow in the Research School of Social Sciences. He is currently Deputy Director of the ANU’s Research School of Humanities and the Arts and interim Director of the Centre for European Studies. 

His books include Chartism and the Chartists in Manchester and Salford (1995) and Feargus O’Connor: A Political Life (2008). 

He was appointed to the Editorial Board in 2009.  

Carolyn Rasmussen
Dr Carolyn Rasmussen is a member of the Professional Historians’ Association and an Honorary Senior Fellow in Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne. 

Her many books include Double Helix, Double Joy: David Danks the Father of Clinical Genetics in Australia (2010), and A Place Apart: The University of Melbourne: Decades of Challenge (1996) co-authored with John Poynter. Her book A Museum for the People: A History of Museum Victoria and its Predecessors, 1854-2000 (2001) won a Victorian Community History award in 2002. 

Carolyn has been a member of the Victorian Working Party since December 1995 and joined the Editorial Board in August 2011. 

Jill Roe
Professor Emerita Jill Roe AO joined the Department of History at Macquarie University in 1968 at the beginning of her academic career, retiring as professor in 2003. A long-time member of the Australian Historical Association, she served two terms as its president (1998-2002), held the Chair in Australian Studies at Harvard University (1994-95) and was an Honorary Visiting Fellow at the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, in 1999. 

Her many publications include Social Policy in Australia: Some Perspectives, 1901-1975 (1976) and Beyond Belief. Theosophy in Australia 1879-1939 (1986). Stella Miles Franklin: A Biography (2008) was awarded the Queensland Premier’s History Book Prize (2009), the South Australian Premier’s Non-Fiction prize (2009) and the Magarey Medal for Biography (2010). 

Jill has been a member of the NSW Working Party since 1990. She was appointed a member of the ADB’s Editorial Board in 1985 and was its chair in 1996-2006.

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